E-Bhasha

A part of the Digital India campaign, e-bhasha is the Indian government’s initiative to present web content in Indian languages (22 scheduled languages) so that the larger non-English speaking Indian population can better comprehend and use web-based services. Announced by President Pranab Mukherjee in June, 2015, the program is a mission mode project (MMP) that’s likely to only focus on and make digital processes pertaining to banking, pensions, the judicial system, etc. easy to understand for Indians not familiar with the English language.

India’s English-literate population is less than 20 percent, but still 90 percent of the online content accessible in the country is in English. E-bhasha intends to boost non-English content supply. Technology Development for Indian Languages (TDIL) will be in charge of research and providing the solutions and tools needed to create content in regional languages, along with offering guidelines for digital governance. TDIL is a part of Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY).

To develop technology and tools necessary for creating local language content, DeitY will outsource specific tasks to third-party individuals and organizations. All the work won’t be done in-house because the government cannot develop all technologies by itself.

Building Applications

As most developers aren’t skilled enough to develop mobile applications in regional languages, classroom-based training will be offered. The existing applications could be rewritten to accommodate or comply with local language requirements. Along with domestic players, big technology players such as Microsoft and Google will also promote Indian language content, under the Indian Languages Internet Alliance (ILIA) initiative. Google’s ILIA is designed to complement the e-bhasha program.